Reading Shintar's screenshot challenge about bugs made me think of bugs in Star Wars: the Old Republic in general. I only recognized a small portion of the (sometimes hilarious) bugs she mentioned. I could think of so many more... which made me feel like it's a wonder the game is still playable. That said, most bugs are innocent. These are my five 'favourite':
1) The leap bug
The top picture shows my guardian Ravalyn falling through the sky during the course of a Novare Coast warzone. People playing sentinels and guardians (or marauders and juggernauts for that matter) probably already know the dangerous combination of jumping and using the leap skill. I knew of its risks, but could not resist leaping to an opponent that was just out of line of sight without jumping. Instead, I fell endlessly through the sky and had to pay for it with my life (typing /stuck). Ah well, totally worth the surprising experience.
2) The chessboard Imperial fleet bug
Maybe you've already seen this picture: I posted it once before, because I was enthralled with the surrealistic view of this world-between-worlds. I ended up here instead of in the raid I was trying to get into. It looked much like a dream world: I could run around on this chessboard forever without getting anywhere. It is still the most visually appealing bug I've encountered so far.
3) The eyeless NPCs bug
Is it a twi'lek? Is it a killik?
This is one of the earliest bugs I encountered in the game. I was still leveling my first character, sage Ravanel, and this twi'lek quest giver looked like a killik to me, while she looked normal on Conrad's screen. It turned out to be a driver issue that I've since then solved. This was in 2012, so I don't know if this bug is still there, but I'll always remember the shock when I talked to this woman.
4) The no weapons bug
Do not step further or... I'll shoot you?
This is Conrad's vanguard after just logging in. He told me mostly scoundrels and operatives suffer from having invisible weapons. Figures I didn't know anything about it, playing those lightsaber classes all the time. I do, however, suffer occasionally from the opposite bug on my shadow: when I'm in stealth my lightsaber still shows. Well, that surely doesn't give away my location at all!
5) The edge of the world
Maybe not strictly speaking a bug, but at least something that was not meant to be seen by my eyes. While exploring I jumped on some rocks, following a path to what I naively hoped would be a datacron. Instead, I arrived to the edge of the world of Voss, with floating builders. It was tempting to jump into the void and see what it would lead to, but I was afraid my character would get stuck forever. Instead, I carefully jumped my way back into the normal, safe world.
I like blogging about bugs
Apparently. Doing a quick search on this blog, I found many more posts referring to bugs I've encountered in Star Wars through the years: some of them harmless, some of them irritating. I've added the label "Bugs" to them in case you'd want to see them all. Usually bugs are seen very negatively by players, some of them even leaving games because they get annoyed by them. I hope to have showed with this post that they sometimes bestow unique gaming experiences.What is the most fun bug you've encountered in games?
Clearly I don't spend enough time playing my leaping alts, because I've never flown away into the air like that! I just got stuck at the bottom of the Voidstar chasm once (or at least that's where I think it was).
ReplyDeleteI think people's attitude towards bugs depends largely on how they feel about the game in general. As someone who loves SWTOR, I find that I'm able to laugh at most bugs, even the ones that are somewhat annoying, usually for the sheer absurdity of the situations they create. But if you don't like a game that much, bugs can easily make your opinion swing further towards the negative, as you are more likely to perceive them as increased inconvenience, "signs of sloppiness" or whatever you want to call it.
My own bug tag is pretty extensive too! The most memorable one was probably the neverending Novare Coast, and the funniest one was M1-4X growing a fourth leg.
That neverending Novare Coast had me literally laughing out loudly. ^^
DeleteI think you're right about the fangirl-factor: I love the absurdity of some of the bugs as well. But how 'bad' or impactful the bugs are also counts, I think. I remember I once encountered a rare bug on the main story in Skyrim denying me to advance the story that came from me doing something a certain way. The only way to fix it was to go back to a save game before a certain event back in time, and the only save game I had was about a day of playtime before that point (in which I had gotten to the top of the magic guild or whatever it's called etc). I was so disheartened by the prospect of doing everything over again that I've still not finished Skyrim up until today.